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After
seeing Adler’s Appetite last year at the same venue I was pleased when
I heard that they were returning this year.
There
were a number of press statements concerning the band prior to the tour.
Some saying that Steven Adler had sacked all the other
band members, Jizzy Pearl
included. This made me wonder firstly
would the tour go ahead and secondly who would be in the band.
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After
phoning the venue the morning of the gig to enquire whether it
was still going ahead, they said yes so I though everything was
tickedy boo.
But
after paying £14.00 to get into the
venue it was to my surprise that I saw the back drop for Adam
Bomb on stage. Certainly not one
of the bands that was advertised as being on the bill.
This made me wonder if one of the
bands had had to pull out at the last
minute and Adam had kindly filled in for the night. But this
wasn’t so. Neither of the bands
advertised as support were playing tonight. This
made me wonder
what other little surprises were in
store for us tonight.
Not
only was his drummer still doing the
sound check at 7.45pm (given
that the doors opened at
7.00pm), but
also there was no merchandise available, which was quite
the opposite to when I saw them last year.
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As
time grew on I saw Steven Adler and Adam Bomb arrive together,
but I couldn’t recognize anyone else who could possibly be in
Adler’s Appetite. Indeed both Steven and Adam seemed more
pre-occupied to wandering about in the crowd signing autographs and
having their photo's taken than actually getting down to the task of
putting on a show.
Adam
Bomb finally hit the stage at 8.30pm and as I
have seen him a total of about ten times now,
I’m afraid its all getting a bit tedious as
far as his shows go. The man is indeed a
very talented guitarist and tours relentlessly (as one fellow
punter exclaimed ... if sooty was looking for a
support act Adam would do it!).
But he’s rapidly loosing my respect and is becoming
somewhat of a one trick pony.
His
set has not changed much since I first saw him perform almost five years
ago, so if you’ve read any of my reviews of
his shows then the set list is almost identical. Such a
shame he dumped the one good line-up he's had in years and brought along
the two dis-interested parties he had with him tonight. Oh please,
you're being paid to put on a show, at least look like your interested
in what you're doing guys!
Now
on to the main event. Now this
was going to have to be something special to
make my 300-mile round trip and £14.00
entrance fee worthwhile. I can see Adam
Bomb and his band of 'merry' men most months for free down at my local
pub, I don't need to come here to pay to see them.
Sadly
this was not the case. Not only did I
not recognize any member of the band apart from Mr. Adler,
but they seemed to be the remains of a Guns N Roses tribute act with a
Duff McKagen look alike and Slash wannabe. The
only redeeming feature of the band now standing before me on stage was
the vocals of David Riley, (the band were
introduced at the end of the set), who
did a sterling job and really put his heart and soul into being Axel
Rose, even if he did look a little disjointed trying to copy some
of his moves.
One thing that annoyed the life out of our party was the way in which
mid way through a song Mr Adler would get up off the drums and wander
off for a smoke or a drink. This wasn't just once or twice, this
was more frequent than King Cross tube station has tubes passing
through. That and the fact he felt the need after night on every
single song to get up and wander to the front of the stage and shake
hands with the 30 or so punters who were standing there. That's
fine to do at the end of the gig, but not at the end of every song.
I also have to ask, just how many drumsticks does one drummer feel the
need to hand out at a gig? You didn't even use a good 50% of the
ones you handed out. You didn't play the drums long enough to go
through that many for goodness sake! You gave out so many
drumsticks in between songs that well before the end of the set the vast
majority of the room had not one, not two, but multiple drum sticks in
their hands! I half expect to see market stalls popping up the
following weekend throughout Bradford with people selling drumsticks
just to get rid of them all.
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You even
had the audacity to blame to poor sound guy for the poor quality
of your performance. Perhaps if you had turned up on time
for the sound check, or even doors open instead of wandering in
1 1/2 hrs after they'd opened it might have been better.
Once we'd seen your band we realised that they had indeed been
there in time for doors opening, it was you and you alone that
let the punters, your band, and yourself down on this occasion
so don't even try that lame excuse and say it was the sound guys
fault.
We've seen enough gigs here to know they know their stuff and
they take a pride in what they do. Pity you don't have the
same sort of pride in what you do.
If
this had been advertised as a Guns N Roses tribute act then I
wouldn’t have been disappointed because they did do the band
justice to some extent with their
renditions of the GNR classics such as ‘It's
So Easy’, ‘Night Train’,
‘My Michelle’ and the like.
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The
only interlude being when Adam Bomb joined
Steven Adler on stage to perform Rod Stewarts 'Maggie
May', and what a good job they did.
But this still didn’t make my £14.00
worthwhile, to be honest I wouldn't have even paid £5.00 for
what I'd seen here tonight.
A friend informed me later the next day that
the Limelight were offering refunds to people
because they weren’t the band that they had promised.
Sadly that was all too late for those of us who had travelled
down to see them at Rios the night before.
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Put it this
way, after the performance, if you can call such a joke a
performance, that we witnessed at Rios, regardless of who's in
the band in future, or any other bands Mr Adler may join in
future, he most certainly will not be seeing one more penny of
my hard earned money ever again.
Mr Adler, you should be
well and truly ashamed of yourself and the dire performance you
and 'your band' gave.
Most highway robbers wear masks before they take your hard
earned cash without doing anything for it, which is something
even you failed to do. I actually feel sorry for those
poor young men you persuaded to join you on this tour because it
certainly won't have done them any favours.
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